Dynamic Page Parameters

A URL consists of three elements: domain name, path (file) name and parameters. For example www.bobsfruitsite.com/catalog.asp?item=4&sessionid=4565319 has two parameters being passed into the page: 'item' and 'sessionid'. The parameters are interpreted as part of the page when it is delivered by the server and specify the page contents. The exact relationship of parameter names and values and the page contents are entirely dependent on the implementation of the website. There are no standards or industry norms in common use except that parameters appear after the ? in the URL and consist of name / value pairs.

In the case of Bobsfruitsite a parameter 'item' of 4 could mean that data about bananas is presented in the page, and a value of 1 could mean apples. The different meanings of the value of this parameter could be very important, if you want to compare how visitors to the apples and bananas pages behave.

The sessionid parameter in the example above could be simply a unique value that the server needs to identify each individual visitor to the site. The different values are not significant in understanding visitor behavior.

ClickTracks needs to match URLs in the Browser View to URLs in the logfiles so that the correct data is attached to the page. For the matching to work on dynamic pages (those containing a ? character followed by name / value pairs) ClickTracks needs to know which parameters are important and which should be ignored by the matching software. The importance of this is best illustrated by example.

ClickTracks needs to know which parameters are significant and which should be ignored when examining pages and mapping links traversed. This is done through the parameter masking dialog. Each parameter name can be checked, causing ClickTracks to ignore (mask) that parameter.

The importance of this process cannot be overstated. Failing to mask a parameter such as sessionid would result in ClickTracks thinking that all visitors follow a unique path through the site. On the other hand if too many parameters are masked out ClickTracks would be unable to distinguish between pages that are in fact different, and would display all visitors as travelling to all links.

Usually ClickTracks makes the right choice by itself, but sometimes you may need to help it. If you select 'Dynamic Page Parameters' from the Tools menu, you can specify exactly which parameters should be masked during the analysis.

Parameters with a cross are the ones which will be masked, i.e. ignored.

Hits:        Indicates the number of times a parameter is seen in requests

Values:        Indicates the range of values seen for the given parameter. A session ID would have a very wide range of values, since it's effectively unique for all visitors. This is very useful in quickly determining if a parameter should be masked or not.

Auto-Calc: Repeats the calculation that is performed when the initial logfile is imported, and guesses which parameters need to be masked and which do not.

Show me how